Using the Internet in 1955 Helped My “Girls.”

Bloggers and other propeller heads always find a way to sneak in when they first started on the web. It’s the Al Gore syndrome. “I am now cool because I used the internet when nerdy wasn’t geeky.” My turn. This is me and my first web page at the Oh Susanna! Home for Wayward Girls. I didn’t have a complete web “site” yet because ASCII was in beta. I was using my own language TELMII. One of the boys that hung around was working something he called Hypo Test Market Linguistics. I laffed and laffed over that one!

These were interesting times.

“The girls” loved learning. Rather than pay them when other men came to enjoy their skills. I would charge the men tuition and then give the girls a cut. Notice on the left side of the picture, the girl with a machine we lovingly referred to as the “cash register.” When I would review my latest webpage – usually an analysis of hourly rate vs girls skill level less operating expenses – the girls would keep their own statistics. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because in the business I ran, the customers liked things tight, and the girls seemed to think bigger was better… but notice their data entry platform. I guess I should have kept it paper thin as shown. Instead I had my vendor add a lot more crap to make it thick and larger. Engorged if you will. When the girls reached a quota, they would yell out “Spitzer!” and all the girls would squeal with delight as the bell rang on the cash register. The girl would get a cash bonus. I should have kept current with web developments while I was spending 15-30 at Playa Del Broderick Crawford in Alabama. But I didn’t, I put away the fifty inch display and retired the custom teak laser pointer I used. ASCII came out of beta and I forgot about TELMII.

I wonder what happened to everybody from Oh Susanna! Home for Wayward Girls.

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Using the Internet in 1955 Helped My “Girls.” — 7 Comments

Hee. What a groundbreaking pioneer you were! I remember back before PCs in the workplace, when I used to operate a Wang word processing machine. Damn, those were good times. So many dick jokes, so little time.